Pre-game and "mother-may-I"s with the DM

[Jackinthegreen]

That makes my head hurt even more than before...  This is assuming Osle's monster rewrites are allowed of course, which I don't see mentioned in the house rules.

[sirpercival]

He says homebrew is allowed with permission.

[ariasderros]

@ Jack
Short version: yes to everything you've said or asked for.

Long version:

That makes my head hurt even more than before...  This is assuming Osle's monster rewrites are allowed of course, which I don't see mentioned in the house rules.

Yes, they are. As Phaedrus sort of mentioned though, Deceivingly Innocent would be near required in order to interact with most people.
There are some of those classes however, that would not be allowed. Half-Cake-Golem comes to mind. Or Shoggoth.

My first thoughts were primordial half-giant (not sure on whether to take the racial class since you seem to have allowed the lesser version) and either archivist or warlock.  I also pondered a warforged artificer with one of the racial subs of course, but I'm wondering about that now given your explanation of the warforged in this setting.

I am okay with both of these. Or rather, all of these. The main thing about Warforged is that: on the one hand, once you start talking, you''ll never have to roll to intimidate anyone who isn't "blessed blood" (i.e. magic peoples like ya'll); on the other, you would be best off keeping at least one of the other party members around you when going through a new populated area, since people thinking that you're a golem under another party members control is better that thinking you are a rogue golem.

One of the main reasons for "Oh, ****ing ***** ****! It's a Golem!" is that most people are more used to the horror stories than anything else. There have been enough "unconventional heroes" that people would ease toward a Warforged as they hear it start talking, but the horror stories involve [Berserk] Golems that pop up from time to time and Shadesteels in the blight-lands.

Speaking of artificer, you mentioned psionic transparency, so would psi arty be on the table?  You've made the biggest nerf to that in the form of magical item nerfs and having to work our butts off for it, but that does sound more interesting.

Yep. Most magic items will be hard to come by. That pretty much the point of the campaign, really. But the one-shot versions, Scrolls, Potions (Brews), Tattoos, Power Stones, these are all still craft-able. So between the fact that you'd still be able to make a scroll of whatever spell, and still have your infusions, Artificer is still pretty powerful. You just won't have all of the Wondrous Items, or Arms and Armor in the game for being an Artificer (though the infusions do wonders to off-set that).

Edit: Or there's the halfling cleric/rogue alchemist build.  There's a feat in Dragon 357 called Sacred Outlaw, which stacks cleric and rogue levels for the purposes of turn undead as well as sneak attack.  Prereqs: SA 2d6, ability to turn undead.  Assuming I could take the feat, the halfling rogue sub levels in RotW would allow 2d6 SA damage at level 1, but only on ranged attacks.  Would that work as prereqs for Sacred Outlaw?  The mainstays of the build are Grenadier and Mad Alchemist from PHB2 and Shaped Splash from Races of Eberron.

Yes, that pre-requisite would be filled by the racial sub.

[ariasderros]

The example dynamic item as a Belt is up. At the end of the post.

[McPoyo]

That example belt clarifies a lot of things, thanks!

[sirpercival]

Hey Jack, since potions & scrolls are still on the table, may I suggest a Mystic Brew Warcrafter?

[Jackinthegreen]

"I have never claimed you'd live forever after trying one of my potions.  Merely that you might look as though you had."

That's the quote that popped into my head.  It's Alkor from Diablo 2.

[InnaBinder]

AFAICT, Weohstan is fix'd now.

[ariasderros]

AFAICT, Weohstan is fix'd now.

Not quite...

(click to show/hide)

First.

K(Arcana): 6 Ranks + 4 Mod

=

Arcana (Int) -- Knowledge (arcana), Spellcraft

And

K(History): 6 Ranks + 4 Mod
K(Nobility & Royalty): 3.0 Ranks + 4 Mod
K(The Planes): 6 Ranks + 4 Mod

=

Scholarship (Int) -- All knowledge skills not included elsewhere, including Martial Lore

Lastly

Sense Motive: 6 Ranks + 4 Mod - 1 Traits

=

Perception (Wis) -- Listen, Sense Motive, Spot, Search (for traps and small objects)

Also worth noting, when it come to skills:

Skillmonkeys get nice things
Cross-class skills only cost 1 point per rank, not 1 point per half rank, though the usual caps still apply. (i.e. Everyone gets Able Learner for free.)

So, in essence, the main issue is that three of your skills are just one skill. Which leaves you with more skill points to spend.

[InnaBinder]

Bah.  Finished filling up on skills.  Now to rework the backstory to justify why he knows so much about freaking EVERYTHING.

[McPoyo]

So, is lichdom even a possibility in this world? It may make a large difference in character stuff, assuming we ever hit that level.

[Jackinthegreen]

Reworking backstories to know about things shouldn't be too hard since we're all "Blessed Blood" with a base 18 in every stat.

Something I asked over in High Arcana about warlocks:  Even though EB is now supernatural, will you still allow feats like Empower SLA to work with it since there aren't versions of those for supernatural abilities?

And with a warlock's crafting ability at level 12: It says the UMD check is 15 + spell level for arcane spells and 25 + spell level for divine.  Since UMD and UPD are lumped together, will you allow the warlock to create psionic items with the appropriate feats?  My thought was 20+ power level should work for emulating powers.

[ShadowViper]

What party roles have yet to be filled?

Will help me narrow things down.

[InnaBinder]

What party roles have yet to be filled?

Will help me narrow things down.

Tentative plan here is Binder 11/KoSS 5/Scion of Dantalion 4, filling a fairly martial role.

[sirpercival]

I'm going to be strictly martial, with a few utilabilities.

[McPoyo]

More pure-caster. Dread necro focusing on fear stacking with some gishyness.

[ariasderros]

What party roles have yet to be filled?

Will help me narrow things down.

So far there is no healing.
So what you can do is:
Play a Strongheart Halfling Cleric. Your first two feats should be Willing Deformity, and Deformity (Madness).
When you're in magic mode personality, you're a badass doctor.
When you're in non-magic personality, you think you are a small human child, and you are always followed around by a voice (just one) that sounds like some kind of announcer, who is detailing the deeds that you did in your other personality. But you don't remember any of it, and think the voice is just lying.

You are Dr. Tran!

(I am really glad none of you know where I live to slap me for that. Also, please don't actually do that.)

Something I asked over in High Arcana about warlocks:  Even though EB is now supernatural, will you still allow feats like Empower SLA to work with it since there aren't versions of those for supernatural abilities?

And with a warlock's crafting ability at level 12: It says the UMD check is 15 + spell level for arcane spells and 25 + spell level for divine.  Since UMD and UPD are lumped together, will you allow the warlock to create psionic items with the appropriate feats?  My thought was 20+ power level should work for emulating powers.

FWIW, "Blessed Blood" means you guys are the types who can use magic. Most of the NPC "Blessed Blood" will be made with 28-34 point buy.

Traditionally, the Meta-(Su) feats are usable 1/day. But, for the warlock, I'll let you take the SLA feats. The main thing is that I don't like the way that Warlocks at level 8 can't deal with things like Mind Flayers or Flesh Golems. Even Rogues got support to let them deal with things they normally can't, but not the Warlocks.

15+PL, same as Arcane for non-mantle; 25+PL for mantle-only powers. For the same, arbitrary reasons that it's different for arcane and divine in the first place.

Bah.  Finished filling up on skills.  Now to rework the backstory to justify why he knows so much about freaking EVERYTHING.

He studied?

So, is lichdom even a possibility in this world? It may make a large difference in character stuff, assuming we ever hit that level.

It requires knowledge of how to build the phylactery. There might be, might be, a tome that serves as a Major Schema for how to make one somewhere in the blight-lands. It would stand to reason that all you'd ever want to know about undead could be found somewhere in there.
I will be getting maps up here at some point, so you know what the heck I'm talking about, but there are other things that are higher on my to-do list.

[Jackinthegreen]

Hey Jack, since potions & scrolls are still on the table, may I suggest a Mystic Brew Warcrafter?

I'll claim regular green as my color.  I'm still on the fence about what I want to play though.

You should play a Warpsoul.

Warpsoul isn't quite the flavor I'd like.  Warcrafter, -maybe-.  Mystic Brew would need some tweaking though given the houserules about various alchemical items and how they'll interact with Augmented Alchemy since that's the basis.  One of my thoughts is to try to be less item dependent, especially since an artificer's oils would nickel and dime me a fair bit and the same seems true of that halfling thrower build as well as a warcrafter.  It's looking like Archivist or Warlock, maybe even a strange combo of the two working with the former's Dark Knowledge playing into the latter's existence.

I might finish that wilder/warlock PrC I was figuring out a while back too and have since named Eldritch Savant.

Speaking of warlocks though, are there any invocations from the DFA list that would be added to the warlock's?  Endure Exposure comes to mind.

[Quillwraith]

Been working on a beguiler, something along the lines of the Gnowhere Gnome.

Q: Is a water fire whisper gnome okay?

[ariasderros]

Warpsoul isn't quite the flavor I'd like.  Warcrafter, -maybe-.  Mystic Brew would need some tweaking though given the houserules about various alchemical items and how they'll interact with Augmented Alchemy since that's the basis.

Who-wha-huh? I don't see anything that would need tweaking. That disciplines definition of "brew" matches what all can be made with Brew Potion, and Augmented Alchemy is pretty clear in how it affects any given possible theoretical alchemic substance (double damage. no damage? then double duration. no duration? then double area. no area either, then what are you trying to augment?).

One of my thoughts is to try to be less item dependent, especially since an artificer's oils would nickel and dime me a fair bit and the same seems true of that halfling thrower build as well as a warcrafter.  It's looking like Archivist or Warlock, maybe even a strange combo of the two working with the former's Dark Knowledge playing into the latter's existence.

I might finish that wilder/warlock PrC I was figuring out a while back too and have since named Eldritch Savant.

Speaking of warlocks though, are there any invocations from the DFA list that would be added to the warlock's?  Endure Exposure comes to mind.

As far as nickle and dime-ing you goes, taking / making the time for it is actually more likely to be the problem with that than the cost. Since you will be getting paid intermittently, and the frequency which you'll be able to buy relevant stuff with said funds will be much less frequent than normal for D&D.

As far as cross-invocations, I've always allowed DFA's to pick off of the warlock list, so I see no reason not to allow it vice versa. Savant looks cool, but yeah, it does need more flesh on dem bones. Psiblast definitely, though I'm not sure what level to put it at (4?). If you use frightful glare in that class's final draft, take out the HD limit, fear effects are gimped enough.

Been working on a beguiler, something along the lines of the Gnowhere Gnome.

When you said beguiler, I had just finished reading that. My second-favorite so far there (Inevitable Nightmare being fav). Am happy. You be Gninja.

Q: Is a water fire whisper gnome okay?

One or the other. Not two different elements, and certainly not opposed elements. Also, much like Air Gnomes, lose the racial bonus against Kobies and Gobies, and your anti-giant becomes a racial against big creatures of the opposed element.